


The Collector

by theredhoodie



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-22
Updated: 2014-06-22
Packaged: 2018-02-05 19:44:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1830019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theredhoodie/pseuds/theredhoodie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She had already accepted her death. She would rather die at the hands and teeth of someone she knew than a stranger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Collector

**Author's Note:**

> This came to me in a dream. I'm not sure what type of world it came out of, but here you have it. Any and all typos are my own, since I posted this without a beta. Totally dedicated to Tasia!

The pain was excruciating. She didn't know how she wasn't dead yet. She hated being dragged into this room. Days slipped by in between where she would faint and slide in and out of consciousness. At least they let her have two days to recover before she was back here again.

"Why are you doing this to me?" she cried, pain searing through her side. The last three bites hadn't healed yet. They were probably infected because no one treated them afterwards. Her cell was filled with blood and vomit and she felt sick every time she was forced into it.

Snarls filled the air and her vision blurred. Someone looked down at her, a light behind their head, creating an out of place halo. Shaggy black hair covered their face, hiding her captor from her. "Why do you think? Science and magic don't mix, so my experiments are  _all_  magical, dear." There was a snipped tone to the voice.

Tears streamed down her face. She was dragged out of the damp room by two people with hands clamped down on her arms. She stumbled and tried to walk, but by the time they reached a stop, she had succumbed to the pain and her bare feet dragged across the cold, dirty concrete.

"Wait," she said as a rattle filled the air. "This…isn't my cell. This isn't my cell." She could barely force the words out, unable to take enough of a breath to speak at a normal tone.

"The Collector is getting tired of you," the man still holding onto her said. He was the only reason she was still standing. "Have fun, you two."

He dragged and tossed her into the cell. She fell to the floor, her hands shot out just in time to save her face from being smashed against the ground. The door swung and creaked behind her, cutting her off from the hallway. There was a flickering light set into the ceiling here, just like in her cell. It smelled cleaner than hers. She lay on the ground, unable to move, blood seeping out from her newest wound.

"Lydia!" a voice echoed through the small space. The words were filled with a concern and kindness she hadn't been exposed to in weeks. Strong, warm hands gently lifted her off of the floor and her body fell into the lap of someone she knew. She recognized the voice, the way he handled her so carefully.

She blinked and looked up at the face hovering over her. "Derek?" she whispered. His hands were running all over, trying to figure out how badly she was hurt. She knew her hair hadn't been washed in weeks and was ratty and tangled. Her face was smeared with dirt and blood and she was dressed only in denim shorts and a sports bra, to give more skin exposure for those sent in to bite her.

"Lydia, what have they been doing to you?" Derek's words sounded far away and her vision began to grow spotty. Without a word, she slipped away into unconsciousness.

When she woke up, she was laying on something softer than concrete. For one shining moment, she thought maybe she was asleep on the forest floor. Maybe she had just fallen asleep, hit her head and dreamed all of this.

But, with an eye cracked open, she saw that she was still in a cell, dark and dank, with blacked out bars over the windows to keep the moon out. She was lying on a single blanket, folded to give her enough cushion so that her joints didn't ache so badly. The sloshing of water reminded her that she wasn't alone. She turned her head to the side and saw the shape of Derek, crouched down. He removed his shirt. There were strips of it lying on the floor.

"Derek," she whispered, voice hoarse. Her eyes brimmed with tears, worried this was the Collector's idea of a sick joke.

Derek turned around quickly, nearly knocking over the metal water basin he was soaking shirt strips in. "You're awake," he said, voice keeping that soft compassion within it. He moved toward her and she pushed herself up on her elbows. "Hey, take it easy." He folded his legs and sat next to her, reaching out with a bunched up piece of cloth in his hand.

She stared at him, waiting for his face to change into something menacing and terrible. He was a werewolf. She had been at the mercy of them for weeks, their saliva, the gift of the bite filling and draining her veins over and over again. She was so devoid of energy that she couldn't even force herself to be scared of him.

The way he gently rubbed away the dirt and blood from her face made her chin tremble. He wasn't here to hurt her. He couldn't. She wouldn't be able to take it anymore. Her heart was already so sore and tired. She couldn't handle another betrayal.

"It's okay," Derek murmured, continuing to wash her face when she settled back on the blanket. Her arms shook from the effort it took to keep herself upright for just a minute. "Since there's two of us, they gave more water and I tried cleaning you up."

His voice was so kind it made her close her eyes, tears squeezing out from underneath her lids and sliding down her temples into her hair and pooling near her nose. "I thought they killed you," she said finally, opening her eyes.

He sat back and studied her. She was covered in newly healed and gaping wounds side by side along her legs and torso. The newest one was a choice bite over the scar left by Peter. "What did they do to you, Lydia?"

She lifted her arms, feeling cleaner than she had in ages. He had done a good job of wiping most of the dirt, sweat and blood from her, but she knew he focused mostly on her wounds, to keep them clean. Sometimes she wished that she  _would_  get infected from the open bites, just so that it would kill her and she wouldn't have to live through this hell anymore. But not only was she immune to the effects of the werewolf bites, she was also filled with magical blood that didn't allow her to die so easily.

"Derek, I can't…" She didn't want to talk about it. A coldness filled her heart.

Derek wasn't taking no for an answer. He forced her to sit up and he sat in the corner of the room on the end of the blanket he laid out for her. She twisted her torso painfully to look at him. Lone wolves were an anomaly. Wolves in the wild were close, always together in packs. There were no alpha fights in the wild, everyone was equal and the pack was a family. Derek had been in here just as long as she had. He was craving closeness, and she didn't realize that she was too.

He took her gently and pulled her back and over to him. Her thighs lay over one of his and his other leg was propped up like a back rest for her. She looked at him, their green eyes meeting. Hers were hollow and dark, his were filled with a spark of hope. How he could still have hope was a mystery to her.

"After the first week, my screaming made the wolves too agitated," she said. Now that she'd started, she found it impossible to stop. She leaned against him, her shoulder digging into his chest until he moved his arm around her shoulders and she nearly buried her face into his chest. The words fell from her lips like a waterfall. "The Collector cut my throat. I can barely talk in a normal octave now. And he made werewolves bite me. Every other day, he dragged me from my cell and into a room that smelled like hell and a werewolf bit me. He told me every time it was a different wolf. He was trying to find a way to turn me. Or…I don't know." Her hand fisted against Derek's chest. "I healed from them all. I don't…I don't know why he didn't want a Banshee. I could be a prize weapon, but to him, I was just a toy to experiment on." She squeezed her eyes shut, tears sliding down her face, off her chin and dripping onto his chest.

"I'm so sorry," Derek said, the grip of his hand on her shoulder soft, his thumb moving in rhythmic motions that were soothing. He ran his other hand over her hair. "I'm so sorry, Lydia." He repeated it more times, until she ran out of tears and lay against him in silence. He lay a soft kiss on the crown of her head and ran his hand up down her arm.

"We're going to die here, Derek," she whispered. He stilled. She was still a Banshee, just without her voice. Any revelations of death that fell from her lips were ones to be taken seriously. "The others haven't found us. What if they're here too?"

"I would be able to feel them."

Lydia swallowed, opening her eyes. She opened her fisted hand, pressing her palm against his chest. His skin was tanned compared to hers, even after so many weeks out of the sun. He was also very warm, solid and strong even though she knew he wasn't being fed well. Werewolves were resilient.

"Derek," she said softly, shifting ever so slightly so her cheek pressed against his collarbone. "The Collector is done with me. I didn't give him what he wanted. I think he's going to let a werewolf kill me."

Derek's hold on her tightened.

"What if it's you? What if he put me in here so you could kill me? He has ways…he could drive you rabid and you wouldn't know what you were doing." She spoke with such an even tone that it scared her. She had already accepted her death. She would rather die at the hands and teeth of someone she knew than a stranger.

"I won't kill you, Lydia," Derek said, voice low and barely audible.

"You may not have a choice." She let out a breath through her nose and snuggled in closer, trying to imagine that they were somewhere nice. It didn't have to be extravagant. Even in his open loft back in the city. It would be quiet and clean, serene and not here. "I'd rather die on my own terms, Derek."

She felt him stiffen under her. He already knew what she was going to say. "Lydia…" his words were a warning.

"Derek," she countered, pushing herself away from him slightly so she could look him in the eyes again. That flicker of hope was dying out. "I don't want to die alone."

"You can't ask me to do this," he whispered.

She put her right hand gently on his shoulder. Her left elbow rested on his other shoulder and she laid her forearm across, her fingers curling around the base of his neck. His hair was longer, shaggy and pushed back, held there by dirt and sweat. His face held a full layer of dark curling beard and he looked just as tired as she did. "You could fight. After, you could fight to leave. I don't know if you'll make it but at least you'll go down in defiance for what happened to us."

Derek's eyes darkened. "He made me turn teenagers. Turn them, feel their power and then he made me kill them," he said, voice deadpan as if he couldn't even feel the pain anymore.

Lydia's eyes softened and she lifted her hand from his shoulder, running the backs of her fingers over his jaw. "Derek, I'm sorry," she mirrored his words from before. She rested her forehead against his and closed her eyes.

"I can't handle more killing, Lydia." His fingers stayed tangled in her hair, his palm pressed against her cheek.

She massaged the back of his neck with her fingertips. "Derek…I can't die like an animal. He's going to throw me into a room somewhere and let me be torn to pieces. I know you could…you wouldn't let me suffer."

He was so close to folding to her request. He had to be. She would die of her own free will and he would go down fighting. Their lives would not be owned by the Collector. Not this time, not for their last moments. They would be as free as they could be, in his prison for the supernatural.

"Derek, please."

His answer didn't come with words. His eyes fluttered open and he kissed her, his lips dry but soft. She made a noise in the back of her throat, but she kissed him back, her fingers at the back of his neck sliding through the soft dark hair there. She started to cry without meaning to, tears slipping down her cheeks.

"Thank you," she whispered, bringing her hand back and rubbing her cheeks. She rested her forehead against his and sighed. The time for sorry's were over. She was Lydia Martin, she wasn't going to spend her last minutes on earth apologizing. Instead, she kissed the corner of his mouth, her lips scratched by the beard there. They had never kissed before. But that didn't mean anything here. They had been locked away for so long, tortured beyond human comprehension, that nothing mattered anymore. Not when it was likely the both of them would be dead within the hour.

"Lydia," Derek breathed against her lips just before she kissed him fully, pressing him back against the wall. It was hard for him to touch her someplace there weren't sore wounds. She had been bitten so many times that her body had begun healing from the bites faster and faster. It only took a few days for the wound to close up now. But the fresh bite from today was open and on her right side, below the ribcage. She imagined they were somewhere with a soft bed looking out onto a magical bay, the water so blue it was unreal. She wouldn't be in pain there.

Derek was so warm and strong; she focused on that, not on the numbness and pain circling through her body from all of the bites. The kisses raised quickly in urgency. Her heart beat fast in her chest for the first time in a long time over something other than fear. Their lips and tongues moved against each other, the air around them buzzing. Derek's arm came around her back, pulling her closer. The desperation within them both was painstakingly evident.

He tried twisting them around, to lay her back on the blanket but she stopped him abruptly, her hands going to his shoulders. She didn't say anything, only she pushed down on his shoulders and carefully got off of him. He shifted down on the blanket and she straddled him, a knee digging into the blanket on either side of him. She leaned over him and ran her hands up his chest to his shoulders. She gripped them hard and gave him a chaste kiss before she kissed the corner of his jaw and his neck, her hands moving down his body as she kissed his collarbone and down his chest. He tasted like dirt and sweat and her mental image changed to something else.

They were in an extravagant tree-house in the forest, high in trees that were hundreds of years old. There was a wall of one-way mirrors and they could see everything around them. The bed was low on the ground and soft like a cloud.

A movement sent a pain down her side and she sucked in a sharp breath, stretching out her torso again, her hands searching desperately for something she wasn't able to find. She ran one hand through his hair, the other, gripping his shoulder. His arms were carefully placed against her bare skin.

"Derek," she breathed, their lips a hair away from touching. She never once used the term before, but she so desperately needed something to hold onto, that little bit of hope that he had in his eyes struck a nerve in her and spurred her on. "Make love to me."

One of his hands lay against her unscathed lower back. "Lydia," he said, warning again.

Tears welled up in her eyes again but she wouldn't let them fall. She laid a soft kiss against his cheek. "Please? Get lost with me. I need…I need to forget the pain. Let me help you, too." She brought her hand up from his shoulder and caressed the side of his face. He closed his eyes and leaned into her touch. Their lives were lost. There would be nothing after this. She knew that he wouldn't make it out of here alive, and he had to know that too.

She was given her answer again with a kiss. Only this one was different from the first. His hand held the back of her head, crashing their lips together with such fervor that Lydia felt it right down to her core. She gasped into his mouth and dug a hand into his shoulder, her nails making half moons in his skin. The kiss snowballed into many more, leading familiar jolts of electricity to run across her skin. Derek's lips moved from her own and kissed along her jaw, dragging his teeth lightly against the skin below her earlobe, gaining a gasp from Lydia's lips.

Somehow she ended up on her back against the blanket again, Derek pressing his torso against hers. The slight pain from her recent bite mixed with the pleasure she was feeling and it disappeared. She wrapped a hand around his neck and dug into his back with her other. He kissed her neck again, sending jolts through her body so strong she could hardly stand. She said his name over and over in a breathless voice, dragging her hand down his back and pulling him closer, hitching a leg over his hip.

Suddenly, he pulled back from her and disappeared. Her head was swimming from the loss of blood and lack of oxygen and her skin was attacked by the cooler air in the room. She heard a zipper and connected it with Derek taking his pants off. She kept her eyes closed, still wanting to be lost in the dream of being somewhere with a view.

She felt him move close again, hover over her and placing a light kiss on her lips. His hands ran down her torso, stopping at her hips. He unbuttoned and unzipped her shorts. She had a fleeting moment of Lydia Martin vanity, thinking how lucky she was that the light in this cell was so dim. The fabric slipped down her legs and her heart hammered in anticipation. Her eyes fluttered open and she found Derek close, hovering over her. She was scared for a moment that he changed his mind. But then he leaned down and kissed her. She hooked her legs around his hips and arched her back, needing this type of close comfort for the first time in her life.

Air left her lungs when he pushed inside of her. Slowly, not entirely, but enough. Her eyes fluttered closed and his mouth covered hers. She could feel his heart beating rapidly. He rested an elbow near her shoulder to keep himself from smothering her, his hand finding hers and pushing his fingers between her fingers. His other moved along her side, running up her thigh, over the raised scar from the first bite, and hooked behind her knee. Her free hand curled into his hair, moving down his neck and her fingers dug into his back when he started moving.

Their breathing grew hot and ragged. She opened her eyes and watched his face and the ceiling when he dipped his head and kissed her shoulder. She said his name more times than she could count. Appreciate was the wrong word to put toward Derek for doing all of these things for her, but she did appreciate it. And she did her best to show him that she was doing this for him too. She wanted to wash away the memories of death and pain from the last few weeks and leave him with something good to hang onto when he fought his way out of here.

So she moved her hips against his and kissed him when she could, gasping and moaning because every part of her was on fire and all the pain from the bites was gone. Warmth spread through her limbs and moaned out his name, her lips finding his. Derek moved faster in and out of her, and Lydia felt the building in her core.

"Oh my god," she gasped out, just before the dam broke and her entire body was filled with warmth and electricity. Her muscles clenched around him and he bit down on her shoulder, not hard, but enough, letting himself go.

The room was filled with their breathing. Derek kissed over the skin he'd marked with his teeth and she felt the waves of heat fade within her as she ran her hand through his hair. They stayed tangled together for some time before Derek pulled away, his mask falling back into place. Before it did, however, Lydia saw that spark of hope and thankfulness toward her.

If the Collector really used werewolves as watch dogs, they would be at the cell soon. Derek stood and pulled on his jeans, since they were the only clothes he had left. His shirt lay in fragments around the cell floor. Lydia scooted forward and found her shorts, pulling them on. She stood and put her hand lightly on Derek's arm. "Derek?" she asked, breaking the silence that had encompassed the room.

"Thank you," he said. She would have felt cheap if she thought he was thanking her for the sex. He was, in a way, but something told her that she was being thanked for taking his mind off of the bad things that had happened to him during the past weeks. He turned toward her, and he didn't have to say anything. The Collector's guards would be here soon. They had little time to follow through with her plan.

The warmth in her stomach was replaced by a block of ice. Derek moved, sitting back down on the blanket, near the head and the corner of the room, his back pressed against the cold wall. She swallowed, clenching her hands into fists to stop from shaking. She walked over to him and sat down in his lap, facing him. Her feet her tucked at his hips and she rested her hands on his abdomen.

"I'm scared," she said, not meeting his eyes.

He didn't make her look at him. Instead, he reached around her with both arms, pulling her against his chest. Her chin rested on his shoulder and her arms slipped around him as he sat forward, away from the wall. He held her like a small child, running his hands down her back. "I know," he said against her hair. "I'm so sorry this happened to you, Lydia."

She squeezed her eyes shut and dug her fingers into his back. There was nothing sexual on her mind now. She was terrified. Her heart hammered in her chest. She told herself that she was taking charge. She would rather die here, in the arms of someone who cared about her, than in some cold room, alone with a monster. "Derek?" she whispered, feeling one of his arms circling around her fully and hold her still. The other was moving up her back, toward her neck. "I'm sorry, too."

Her heart leapt in her throat and she wanted to say stop, but his fingers were already circling around her throat. It was painless. He pressed his fingers against her flesh, his superhuman strength breaking her neck in one flick of the wrist. She fell limp against him, her arms falling from his back. He held her against him and closed glossy eyes, burying his face in her matted hair.

There were footfalls in the hall. People were coming toward the cell, more than the usual one or two. Derek opened his eyes and stood, laying Lydia down on the blanket and closing her eyes. He faced the door and clenched his hands into fists. Someone yanked it open. It was the Collector, with his long dark hair and stick-thin figure. He swept his eyes across the room and they bulged out of his head when he saw Lydia.

"You stupid brute! You killed her? You weren't supposed to kill her!" he screamed. " _I_  was supposed to kill her!"

Derek's eyes flashed red. He hadn't seen and felt the moon in a long time, but he was still an alpha. He advanced on the Collector with a roar, knocking him to the ground out in the hall. The guards pulled him off, but he slashed out and pushed them back.

"Stupid, son of a bitch! Just kill him!" the Collector screamed his orders.

They came at him with tazers and sliver sliced against his skin. He roared and fought, just like Lydia told him to. He wasn't going down without a fight. But there were too many of them. They came from all corners of the dank hallway. Even at full power he would have had a hard time fighting them all off. He was stabbed between the ribs with something thin and silver. His vision swam and he stumbled. Someone kicked his back and he went down against the floor. The Collector squatted down in front of him, poking his face into view. He smiled with too many teeth.

"It's a shame, really. Such a waste. That last stab went a little too far. You'll be crippled if I let you live, but I don't like crippled toys."

Derek growled and shot out a hand, grabbing the Collector's ankle and sinking his fangs into the bony flesh. The Collector screamed from pain and shot up, kicking Derek in the neck and then the nose. Red spots filled his vision. The Collector was hobbling away and screaming about killing him.

The last thing Derek felt was the sharpness of a blade against his throat.


End file.
